


Can't Help Myself

by Ematthews13



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hopeful Ending, How Do I Tag, My First Fanfic, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 23:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15302754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ematthews13/pseuds/Ematthews13
Summary: After the events on Crait, Ben and Rey still seek each other out in their force connection, despite knowing there's no way their impossible situation on two opposite sides of a war can end well. Or can it?





	Can't Help Myself

**Author's Note:**

> So I heard this song called Break Up in the End by Cole Swindell, and it's pretty angsty but it reminded me of Reylo (doesn't everything?). Naturally I wrote a fic about it. I've never published anything before, even though I have several fics written or WIP on my phone that I haven't felt comfortable enough publishing yet, so before I can talk myself out of it I figured I'd put this one up. The song I originally based this on doesn't end happily, but I couldn't bring myself to write a hopeless ending for Reylo. Here's some lyrics from the song I started writing this about, I guess? 
> 
> 'Even if I knew you’d be the one that got away   
> I’d still go back and get you   
> Even if I knew you’d be my best and worst mistake   
> I’d still make it with you  
> Over and over, again and again  
> Even though we break up in the end
> 
> You’ve just had one too many tonight   
> You’re just calling ‘cause you’re lonely, that’s okay  
> But you know if you come over, I can’t not let you in  
> Even though we’ll break up in the end'

She is here again.

 

They’ve tried their best to stay away, to keep their distance from each other, but they just can’t. Neither of them can even blame it on the Force anymore; they mastered control of turning this connection off and on shortly after Crait. No, they see each other because they want to. Because they need to.

 

They were both angry after Crait, the emotional wounds from the throne room too fresh for either of them to bear. They really only used the anger to mask the hurt, but it truly masked nothing. After a long day filled with the stress of being Supreme Leader, a position he never really wanted in the first place, he sought her out, pulled on the thread of their connection ever so gently until she accepted and found herself in the Supreme Leader’s living quarters.

 

The anger didn’t last much past the first connection post-Crait. The hurt was the only thing that remained.

 

Hurt, and maybe something else neither of them would admit to themselves.

 

She rejected him, rejected his offer. She couldn’t let the Resistance die, and some part of him was grateful for that. That spark of light and hope that draws him to her even now would have died with the rebels if she had accepted his offer. She couldn’t join him, and he couldn’t join her. He couldn’t face his mother after all he had done, couldn’t accept the weight of his crimes and would probably have been issued a death sentence for them no matter what authority General Organa held.

 

Ben and Rey could not be together. And yet…

 

And yet, here they were, always seeking each other, and always finding. At first, it was friendly. After a stressful day of being the Supreme Leader and the last Jedi, they tugged the string between them just to maintain sanity. They both needed to voice their stresses, to talk to someone outside of their inner circles just to retain some semblance of personal peace. Of course, these platonic conversations late at night into the wee hours of the morning faded into an intimacy neither of them could deny any longer. Late night laughter at the expense of Hux’s fuck-ups or the porgs’ impromptu appearances shifted into falling asleep together, waking up throughout the night to find they’d transitioned into each other’s embrace. Eventually they consciously started falling asleep in each other’s arms, and when that wasn’t enough anymore, he kissed her.

 

He thought she might have turned him away at that point. It was a somewhat risky move for him to make, given neither of them had ever verbally addressed that what was between them might not be platonic. And while there was a hint of surprise in her eyes after that first kiss, there was also relief. Relief that she wasn’t alone in how she felt, relief that he felt the same way.

 

They both knew how this ended. At the end of the day, he was the Supreme Leader of the First Order, and she was the last hope of the Resistance. He was cursed by his own crimes, even by the crimes of a regime as a whole that he had no control over until several months ago. She didn’t belong with the Resistance; even surrounded by dozens of people, she felt almost just as alone as she did on Jakku. But she couldn’t let them die, and leaving them right now in their dwindling numbers would be a death sentence for the group.

 

“This can’t end well,” he reasoned as he lied underneath her while she kissed down the column of his neck. She shushed him as she continued her ministrations, and his body couldn’t seem to listen to his brain as he learned every dip and curve of her body that night, pushing into her as they both gave themselves to each other for the first time they’d ever given themselves to anyone. He already knew she was the only person he would ever give himself to. It seemed his heart couldn’t listen to his brain either.

 

Months went on, both of them pulling that strand between them so many times that it almost seemed tangible, like the Force itself had tied them together, and really, it had. As if it had seen the loneliness in each of them for so long that it just couldn’t bear to watch any longer, tying them together in a way that allowed them to understand that their deepest insecurities are shared. The two people most afraid of always being abandoned will never abandon each other. He will always be there for her, and she will always be there for him.

 

But it will never work.

 

They’ve tried to ignore it, that whisper in the back of their minds that reminds them, but sometimes it just won’t be ignored. They lay in each other’s arms after making love and he can feel her tears hit his chest, hot and desperate. The more time they spend together, the more their hearts are fulfilled, but the harder it is to ignore their predicament, the more it hurts every second they are apart. The bond isn’t even enough anymore. He needs her in person, real.

 

He stops pulling on their connection to see her. He can’t tell if the ache is worse when he doesn’t see her, or when he does and is reminded of everything he can’t have. Sometimes he wishes she would stop calling him back to her too. Maybe it would be easier to let go if she would try too.

 

But he can’t deny her. He will always be there when she calls, even if it tears his heart in two and renders his soul into shreds. When she needs him, he will always be there to kiss her, and when she needs more, he will give himself to her freely.

 

She begins to notice that he doesn’t call to her, of course. She is perceptive, and he sees the question in her eyes every time she brings him to her, but as long as she won’t ask him about it, he won’t answer it. The truth is too raw. It would hurt her to hear it spoken aloud, and it hurts him to hurt her.

 

But tonight is different.

 

Tonight she is here again, but it is different. The moment the bond opens up, he knows tonight will be the night he will answer her questions.

 

Tonight she is drunk.

 

He knows from past conversations that she has never been drunk, never even tried alcohol because of her recently unsuppressed memories about her parents, but it seems she couldn’t help herself tonight.

 

Her eyes are already flooded with tears, and he takes a step toward her to comfort her, but for the first time in months, she takes a step back.

 

“Why?” she demands, hurt and angry. “Have you found someone else? Are you bored of me?” She’s moving toward him now, landing her hands on his shoulders to push him back with each question. “Why don’t you come to me anymore, why? Tell me!”

 

Her advances stop. The tears that have welled up in his eyes finally release onto his cheeks. At the sight of his tears, her anger subsides, leaving only the hurt and sadness behind. “Why?” she asks again softly.

 

“This will never work,” he finally admits aloud raggedly, after a year of knowing her and almost as long loving her.

 

She shuts her eyes tightly, forcing a fresh stream of tears down her cheeks while she breathes in unevenly. “I can’t believe that, I just can’t.”

 

They’re both quiet for a while, just standing there looking at each other within arms’ reach yet worlds apart.

 

“I’ll never stop believing.” In him. In their future together.

 

_It isn’t too late._

The memory of her tender comfort beside a fire long ago resounds in his head with her whispered statement.

 

And maybe it’s her words, maybe it’s the sight of her painfully open and vulnerable before him, maybe it’s the memories they share or how she has carved out a place in his heart where only she fits and he knows if he truly let her go, she would leave an emptiness in his soul that can only be filled by her, or maybe it’s because he’s just so, so tired.

 

Tired of worrying about their future, tired of trying to lead an Order he doesn’t even believe in or want anymore, tired of constantly wrestling with the light that always seems to brighten inside him whenever he thinks about her.

 

Or maybe it’s a combination of all of these things and the way she’s looking at him like he’s the only thing that matters in her universe that cause the spark of hope in his heart for a different ending for them to ignite.  

 

He reaches out to touch her hand like he did long ago, and the hazy visions he has long since forgotten spring forth before his eyes in sharp, vivid detail.

 

Chasing Rey up the stairs of their own home on Naboo, holding her hands above her head while he thrusts in and out of her on their bed, rings with matching intricacies on both of their hands. Soothing a small baby in his arms on the same bed late at night while Rey sleeps beside him. Carrying a small boy on his shoulders while an energetic little girl with hazel eyes and wavy black hair circles his legs happily, Rey’s laughter ringing through the air from the house behind them.

 

The vision is short, passing in the span of mere seconds, but it’s enough. It’s enough to stoke the hope inside him and give a foothold to the ever-present light that calls him.

 

“This will work out,” he breathes, taking her face in his hands, “somehow, it will.”

 

She nods wordlessly, raising up on her toes to kiss him tenderly.

 

It’s not going to be easy. He will probably have to face some pretty ugly truths about himself to get anywhere near the version of him he saw in that vision, but he knows they will face it together. He won’t abandon her, and she won’t abandon him. No matter how hard it is to achieve that future together, he will never regret following this Scavenger girl in the forest on Takodana what feels like a lifetime ago. The Scavenger girl that was, is, and always will be his saving grace.

 

For the first time in a long time, Ben Solo believes, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
